“We’re not at war. The world you knew doesn’t exist anymore. One nation doesn’t need to conquer another to survive.”
“We are beings in a constant state of war. That is what we are. All we are.”
“No, we’re more. When the rest of the world banded together to fight you, I think you saw that. It surprised you. You were counting on them not working together. And it resulted in both your destructions.”
She grinned. “You cannot defeat me.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
Kicking up a thick piece of piping, she struck it with her heel and sent it flying toward him. He held up his palms, and a powerful blast of blue light sent it back to her. She swiped it away like a tennis ball.
She bent and ripped open the carrier’s surface. A deep crack ran between Dillon’s feet. He rose into the air and zoomed into her, the sheer speed catching her off guard. They tumbled over the edge of the deck and into the black water. She struck him with her fist and then kicked his chest.
He flipped backward into the water and launched himself with hands and feet, ramming her in the chest and lifting her up out of the darkness. Whirling her body, he flung it through a carrier. She came out the other side and rammed into another vessel.
Before he could blink, she had sailed back and rammed into him, sending him half a mile away in an instant. He skidded into a street, tearing up the pavement for several blocks. She swooshed down, lifted his body, and slammed her fist into his stomach, sending him backward through an apartment building.
A woman screamed. She was in the shower, trying to cover herself.
Dillon was lying on her bathroom floor. “Didn’t see a thing. Sorry. Nice tattoo, though.”
He jumped out of the building and flung a wave of energy at Atlantis. She fired back at the same time, and the beams met, sending both of them reeling backward. Atlantis was on her feet first. Sprinting, she planted her knee into his jaw and sent him about a hundred feet into the air.
She flew up and caught him with a fist to his chest as he fell, and he bounced up again. On the way back down, Dillon ripped a chunk of cement from a building and smashed her in the face with it. After slamming into a cab, she pulled herself to her feet. He hovered in front of her.
“You’ve grown stronger,” she said.
“I have some friends with me.”
She shook her head. “No. Impossible.”
He lifted his hand. “Take it up with them.”
Dillon fired a blast of energy under her feet. The ground dropped beneath her, and she fell. A moment later, she leapt out of the hole, screaming like a banshee, and chased him into the clouds.
Fists, elbows, and knees flew at a fever pitch. Dillon finally caught her with a fist in the face that sent her spinning backward. Before she could regain stability, he smashed into her again.
She fell lower and wrapped her arms around his legs. She spun him all the way around, gaining momentum before releasing him into the sky.
He flipped over as he flew and sped away from her. She laughed and continued to follow. Weaving in between buildings, flying up into the clouds, and then low near the sea, he raced as fast as he could. Within a minute, they were far over the ocean, with no land visible in any direction. Then the snowcapped peaks and flat white valleys of Antarctica came into view.
Suddenly, she was on his back. They crashed into a mountain and hit the ground with an eruption of ice and snow. He rolled over and struck her twice before she kicked his head, causing him to see stars. On top of him, she pummeled him with her fists.
He felt the power pulsating within the suit and screamed as the burst of blue energy struck her in the torso and sent her soaring through the air.
He crawled to his feet.
The mountain stood clean and white, and he flew for the entrance to the cave with Atlantis close on his tail. He drifted down into the darkness, over the ice bridge, and into the city.
She caught up with him there. Grabbing his head, she pulled back on it. He elbowed her into a building. She came back swinging with both arms and knocked him spinning through the air. He hit a building so hard that he vomited into the suit.
She smashed a knee into his helmet, causing it to fracture. Reaching down, she clawed at the revealed flesh, trying to rip off his face.
Dillon swung his legs, catching her in the jaw with his heels. He spun and darted for the tower. He got through the walls and to the bottom floor before she caught up to him again.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “Do you wish to die in the ice?”
The remaining black ooze dribbled out of their pools.
Dillon said, “You want me? Here I am.”
She grinned then bent low and dashed at him. Smashing her shoulder into his stomach, she ran through the walls of ice until she hit the mountainside, pinning him there. He wrapped his arms around her head. The puddles of black slithered across the floor behind her.
She looked into his eyes. “And now, you will die, young one.”
“You first.”
The first puddle ran up her leg. She gasped, her eyes rolling back into her head. The second slithered up her back and into her ears, and another went up her nose, filling her eyes with black. Dillon kicked her away, and she screamed as the black fluid engulfed her. The fluid lifted her then pulled her down into the ground.
She disappeared in the space of a minute.
The fluid dissipated and went back to its pools.
Dillon sat down. The pain he had been holding off poured into his body. No one could have that kind of power again. The place had to be destroyed. He pushed himself up to his feet.
The smell of vomit and blood inside the suit made him ill, and he had to open the helmet the rest of the way. He flew out and hovered over the mountain. The icy wind whipped his face as he looked down. The pulsating power of the suit and the black fluid made his bones vibrate. It was like having a hurricane inside his body that could tear out of his flesh at any second. But if he concentrated, he could focus it into a ball of pure force.
His body lit blue, and beams of light shot from him. An electrical storm ravaging him, he shouted as he focused all his energy and concentration downward into the mountain. A beam of pure sapphire light shot into the mountain with a noise like an earthquake. The mountain glowed blue, pieces of it flying off and scattering over the frozen tundra.
With one final push, Dillon fired everything the suit had into it. The explosion was so massive that it sucked him down toward the massive crater where the mountain had been. Boulders the size of buildings rained down on him.
He caught the edge of the chasm with one hand and swung his legs up over the side. He thrust with the suit and skidded across the icy ground into a bank of snow.
EPILOGUE
The café was done for the night, and Rebecca turned over the sign on the door, indicating they were closed. Her two co-workers were heading off to parties, but she had at least another couple of hours of cleaning ahead of her. She always stayed the latest and came in earliest the next morning.
As she flipped off the neon sign outside, she saw a black figure standing at the door that made her jump. He was tall, about seven feet, and had eyes that glowed blue. The blue eyes went dark, and the black material recoiled. Underneath was the face of a man she recognized. She opened the door.
“I told you I’d pay you back for that sandwich.” He pulled out a container of hundred dollar bills. “Enough, my sandwich savior, that you can buy two of these cafés.”
“Where did you get this?”
“Drug cartel in Mexico that won’t be doing any carteling for a while. They’ll never miss it. Whatever I can take from them is fair game.”
“What do I do with it?”
“Go to one of the big cities. Build a life. I hear college is fun.” He rose into the air.
“What’s your name?”
“Black Onyx.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“
You know, I could take it back.”
She smiled. “I’m just kidding.”
He grinned and bolted through the clouds.
Jaime was on the roof when Dillon landed behind her. She heard him and rose, throwing her arms around him.
“I was so worried.”
“I’m fine.”
“When I saw those news reports, I thought—”
“I’m fine, babe. I promise. I’m fine. I have something to show you.”
“What?”
He lifted her into his arms and flew high above the Pacific. He placed her feet on top of his so she could balance. He pulled out a ring with a gleaming black stone in it. She gasped.
“I’ve felt empty almost all my life. I thought that part of me was missing, that I was born disabled somehow and didn’t have that part that other people did. But I know that’s not true now. I was born missing a part of me so that I could find you. You’re the missing part that makes me whole. Will you marry me, Jaime?”
Tears shined in her eyes. “Yes.”
He placed the ring on her finger. She held him as they slowly drifted over the ocean, the moonlight sparkling off the water and the stars shimmering like gems.
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SUPERHERO
An Action Thriller by
VICTOR METHOS
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify—so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.
—John Keats
PROLOGUE
The bank filled with smoke before a single person could scream. Ryan Norton sat in an office away from the tellers when he heard the groaning of metal and saw the acrid smoke fill the air so quickly he thought something was wrong with his eyes.
Customers were frightened but not terrified. They understood that malfunctions happen and Ryan heard one customer say that something was wrong with the air conditioning, causing it to spew out dust and debris.
When they heard the pop of the Uzi 9mm parabellums, their concern turned to terror and they panicked.
After a few moments, the smoke began to dissipate and Ryan saw figures running around the bank barking orders and firing rounds into the ceiling if people took too long to obey.
Underneath his desk near the power cords to the computer, there was an alarm meant to be pressed by foot. He pressed it and checked the time: 9:34 a.m. Once the alarm was pressed, the police were supposed to arrive in less than five minutes. But the LAPD was not known for being on time and he thought about ducking under the desk.
“Where’s the manager?” someone yelled. He noticed an accent to the voice but he wasn’t sure where it was from.
Ryan jumped under the desk, pulling the chair toward him to give the appearance that no one could fit underneath.
Then he heard something out in the main lobby that startled him in its contrast to everything else: boots hitting the floor. Compared to the surrounding chaos, their pace was calm. He could tell the steps were by the front entrance and were making their way to the tellers. They sounded like bowling balls being dropped.
They couldn’t be footsteps, he thought. Who could make footsteps like that?
He heard the same male voice that had shouted earlier. “The manager’s in there.”
Ryan closed his eyes. He thought of his wife and infant daughter, who should be at swim lessons right now. The thought of never seeing them again filled him with a degree of terror and sadness he’d never felt, and he knew, just knew, he would do anything to make sure that didn’t happen.
Something crackled through the air. It wasn’t until it repeated that he realized it was a human voice.
“Please come out from underneath the desk, Mr. Norton.”
The voice sounded heavy, like someone was speaking into a bucket with a megaphone. The mechanical tint to it made it seem like it was filtered through a computer or radio.
“If you do not come out, we will have no choice but to open fire. You have until the count of three. One…two…”
“All right,” Ryan shouted. “I’m coming out.”
He crawled on his hands and knees, pushing the chair out of the way as he turned and put his hands on the desk and used it to pull himself to his feet. What he saw nearly made his knees buckle.
What was standing in front of him didn’t seem human. His first thought was simply, monster.
The man in front of him was taller than anyone Ryan had ever seen. He was heavily muscled—to the point that veins the size of small ropes thrust out from his skin and wiggled over his muscles like worms. But that wasn’t what terrified Ryan to his core.
Covering the man was a black metal suit, contoured to his gigantic frame. Over the joints, the metal was replaced with a thick red material that appeared flexible. Small pistons clung to the material. The man’s helmet, which had a point that came down over his forehead and covered the bridge of his nose, gleamed under the light. Covering his mouth and connected to the helmet, a voice box of some kind flashed red when he spoke. His eyes were pure white, no pupils.
“You will follow me.” He turned and began to walk out. Ryan immediately followed.
Once they got to the lobby, Ryan could see the men that had been running around. They were a mixed group but all had one thing in common: dreadlocks. In their arms were Uzis made with smooth black steel. All the employees and customers had been gathered in the center of the lobby, on the floor, their hands behind their heads as they cried and shook.
“When did you press the alarm?” the monster asked.
“I…I didn’t.”
A massive arm moved up and a hand came down on Ryan’s shoulder. For how large it was, taking up the entire shoulder, the tips of the fingers reaching down his back, it was gentle and soft. “Please, do not lie to me.”
“Maybe…maybe a few minutes ago.”
The monster nodded. “You will open the safe and provide my men with whatever they need. Is that understood?”
“I don’t have the combo to the safe. Only the district manager has that and he’s not here. There’s not much kept in there anyway. We empty it every—”
The monster, in a movement almost too quick to see, snatched one of the women tellers off the floor. He lifted her in the air by the back of her neck as she screamed. He twisted his hand, as if opening a jar, and her neck crunched as she fell silent. He threw her limp body on the floor at Ryan’s feet.
Ryan’s mind, now shut off, filled with a pure, utter terror that precluded any rational thought. He stared at the body on the floor before him, unable to move his eyes away.
“You will now open the safe.”
He was trembling so badly he thought he might pass out. He had no strength and it took everything he had to simply nod his head. One of the men led him back to the safe and he put in his key and punched in the six-digit combo. The safe clicked open and the man pushed him aside as the others followed him in. Pulling out black garbage bags, they began filling them with the stacks of cash piled neatly on the racks.
Ryan could hear sirens now. They were getting closer and he stood still as they came right up to the entrance and around back. He heard tires screeching and men shouting outside. The monster turned to his men in the safe and then loo
ked out through the entrance. He began walking toward it.
Ryan watched him through the glass double doors. Two police cruisers had parked out front. The officers opened their doors and tucked themselves behind them, their weapons drawn.
“Down on the ground, now!”
The monster looked around as more sirens approached and circled the bank. He didn’t move for a long time as the officers continued to yell at him. The monster abruptly crouched down and, as if he had springs in his legs, leapt into the air. Easily twenty feet up, he flew in the direction of the police. The officers were too stunned to respond but one managed to get off a shot, which sparked on the metallic armor and bounced limply away.
The monster landed on the hood of a cruiser with a thunderous crash, smashing the vehicle with such force that the back end rose off the ground. The officers continued firing. The monster flipped his body off the car like a gymnast and landed on the cement, bits of it flying away like a bomb had gone off. He grabbed the devastated cruiser on both sides of the engine and lifted it like a child’s toy. He swung it into the other cruiser, knocking it to its side and pinning one of the officers below the heap of twisted metal.
More officers were firing now, but the rounds continued to bounce away. The monster jumped and spun onto another cruiser, managing to grab one of the officers and fling him across the street into a parked van. He sprinted into another cruiser shoulder first. It flipped to its side and rolled several times before crashing onto the cement upside down.
He ran into the officers, crushing one under his boot as the others scattered. The monster stood silently a long time and then strode back into the building. He came over to the safe, ignoring Ryan.
“Gentlemen, it is time to leave.”
Black Onyx Duology Page 18
